The KDE Project has just announced the release of KDE 3.0Alpha1,
the inaugural release of the
KDE 3 series. This release is targeted at developers, though experimental
users might want to check it out (be sure to read theinstructions for
installing KDE 3 alongside your KDE 2 desktop). The principal changes from therecently-released KDE 2.2.1 stem
from the switch to Qt 3. However, that switch does bring with it an impressive
array of feature enhancements, including new database classes, new data-aware
widgets, improved RAD development with a much-enhanced Qt Designer, a new
powerful regular expression class (with full Unicode support),
improved internationalization support (including the ability to mix different
character sets in the same text), bi-directional language support (for languages such as Arabic and Hebrew),
multi-monitor (Xinerama and multi-screen) support, better integration of pure
Qt applications into KDE, and hardware-accelerated alpha blending. With
the Qt port out of the way, the KDE developers can now focus on theplanned
KDE improvements. Read the full announcementhere, or go straight to thesource
(alternative
link).

You can still use your X middle-mouse-button text buffer thingy, but the real clipboard is now independent of it. So using Ctrl-C to copy uses a different clipboard than simply selecting with the mouse and hitting the middle mouse button. It's the best of both worlds!

This has always been the ICCCM (the X11 document describing the way apps should interact) stance on how the clipboard should work. Nice to see KDE getting it right at last, this should be popular with Windows converts and X11 die-hards alike :-)

Oh, hell... let the countertrolls do their work. I'm tired of the BS about C++ being unstable, and Gnome's use of GTK better because it runs on Windows (as if Qt didn't and as if either Gnome or KDE ran on Windows in anything more than proof of concept works). Logical arguements haven't worked, and the CounterTroll (and the other fauna due soon, the TrollKiller, the TrollSpotter, the Moderator, the GrammarNazi and others) is a sign that the ecology of this message board just went beyond normal users.

Take heart - at least it's a sign that KDE has a high enough visibility so that people who don't even use it (and indeed, don't care about it) can flourish in the nooks and crannys of its online userbase.

Well, now the only thing I can think of that would be nice in the clipboard is easily copying and pasting KParts between apps. I.e. it would be nice if you could copy a Kontour part from within KWord, and then paste it into a presentation within KPresenter. Is something like this already working at this point?

: I do hope that somewhere along the way that someone will fix the various minor bugs.

3.0 is pretty much a port of the existing code to Qt 3.0. Along the way, a whole slew of new bugs will be picked up, so in a way, the only thing that 3.0 will be is bug fixes - pre-existing and new ones.

At the same time, there is a 2.2.2 branch that was announced that will just have some bug fixes in it, with no new features.

Of course hackers are constantly also bug fixing (e.g. I did nothing else the last weeks since I didn't have time to do something else), but look at the huge list on bugs.kde.org, many bugs are not always reproducible, some bugs are more like feature requests, some bugs are known but nobody knows how to solve them, well, it's not that simple to fix them all ;-)

Is the new regular expression class designed to be compatible with the one in boost? (http://www.boost.org)? If not, why? These guys have spent a lot of energy getting the interface correct in order for a feature like this to become a standard in c++ sooner or later. But having multiple incompatible interfaces for the same thing (implementations don't matter) are really going to cause a lot of trouble later.

And if it was examined and found to "not meet your needs", was any attempt made to tell the boost developers what you needed?

I guess the main concern is Unicode support. Does the boost regex class support it? Another question I've always had is: does std::string support Unicode? A standard Unicode string interface is much more important than regex.

well, this would be a question best put to Qt developers, not KDE developers, since the class (QRegExp) is in Qt, not kdelibs. the version put in qt3 is perl-compatible, like boost's regexp class. however, I think that the trolltech developers didn't use boost's regexp class for a number of reasons:

1. qregexp uses QString. This is a fully unicode-compatible string class used everywhere in Qt (along with QCString). Boost's regexp class uses std::string. This is not used at all by Qt, afaik. Neither is much of the c++ system libraries or the stl. Qt provides adequate, if not better replacements for all of these. Why? Because Qt has existed long before these things were standardized among many implementations.

2. qregexp has existed for a long time, even before boost's regexp class. qregexp is used to many Qt/KDE apps already, so this new version is mostly a dropin replacement for the old qregexp (with a _LOT_ more functionality, of couse).

There are some things that I'd really like to see in the next release of KDE. A few of them are eye-candy, but the rest I feel are truly needed. What do you think?

SVG Icons:

I've found this *very* neat screenshot of Gnome (rather nautilus) supporting SVG icons: http://jimmac.musichall.cz/screenshots/e-sync.jpeg.
These are really nice. Maybe it's the cartoony style of the icons, I don't know... but I really like them over the current KDE icons.

Translucency:

Also, I've heard that QT 3.0 will support xrender fully -- providing access to "true" transparency. What does this mean? Is it the kind of transparency provided by Mosfet's translucent menu style, or would it be true *true* transparency, where graphics /underneath/ the translucent area change, and you can see the change through the translucent area? I figure this full kind of transparency would be needed if KDE were to implement drop shadows for windows, menus and dialog boxes; if the windows under the drop -shadow change their views, then the kind of transparency we see in Mosfet's style engine would not update the drop-shadow... just a thought...

BIDI support:

how long until KOffice shows real support for Hebrew? Abiword is making (admirable) steps to support it, but they are hampered until gtk 2.0 comes out (with bidi & aaliasing support).

Integrating CD mastering into Konqueror:

I wish to develop an ioslave or kpart implementing cd mastering and arrangement-making capabilities into Konqueror (as a kpart or ioslave). So far, whomever I find to help me drops out after a day. Anyone want to see this capability in the next release of KDE? contact me. This could be very powerful. Windows XP has this, albeit in a braindamaged way (you have to drag your files to a cd-burner 'trash-can' and hit 'burn'; my idea is more thought-out). Again, contact me for details (katz@wam.umd.edu, IM: MnicHisteriaNARF )

About transparency:
I think it's really important, but not for fancy effects; transparency is the key to a full support of the PNG format. I would love a full alpha support of PNG images in Konqueror - that would make it an even better browser!

> There are some things that I'd really like to see in the next release of KDE. A few of them are eye-candy, but the rest I feel are truly needed. What do you think?

I think that eye-candy things are now uninteresting. It is not important for KDE to copy the MS Windows, Gnome or Mac look. KDE has its own look, I appreciate it, as many users, and the way is to continue, with some little improvements (example : coloured, perhaps animated, cursors)... There are so many things to do more useful that copying looks. But copying good functionnalities of others desktops is useful, of course. For instance, I recently discovered in KDE the ability to put in a window a menu of the K Menu (as in Gnome). Very good ! Thanks ! Also I now can use Kicker in a left vertical bar (without any damage). Very useful for the management of the space in a 19" screen !

Alas, all is not implemented in KDE 2.2.1, so I hope for KDE 3.... For example any program MUST memorize the location and status of the bars (I am tired of changing the properties of the Kate bar or the Quanta + bar...).

I disagree. Some people choose other environments over KDE because of the look. That can be avoided only by offering as many alternative looks as possible. The G-team has guys like tigert and jimmac and that's the reason why some people choose it over KDE. Yes, KDE might offer better functionality, but that proves the importance of looks. It is NOT to be taken lightly.

> There are so many things to do more useful that copying looks.

I agree. Especially in the case of copying Windows. When I left Windows for Linux I wanted something drastically different. I had a hard time using KDE 1.1.2 because of that. It has gotten better over the years, but we can't stop evolving the KDE look.

So, people out there. If you're more of an artist than a coder, please serve the community by creating different kinds of themes and icons. Submit them to the kdeartwork module and who knows, one day a person might choose KDE over another DE because of that.

Truly, truly beautiful. What a way to give differentiation of space. The only improvement I can think of adding is to brighten up the left and top of the window borders to differentiate two windows side by side where no drop shadow can determine depth.

That is really nice. It would be nice to have a plugin archetecture for WM effects. That way, it wouldn't have to be part of the theme, but you could add as many effects as you want. Pie in the sky, I know, but it's an idea. Stuff like window effects when minimized/maximized, effects when switching desktops, etc.

> I've found this *very* neat screenshot of Gnome (rather nautilus) supporting
> SVG icons: http://jimmac.musichall.cz/screenshots/e-sync.jpeg.
> These are really nice. Maybe it's the cartoony style of the icons, I don't
> know... but I really like them over the current KDE icons.

The Gnome icons are indeed quite nice. Icons in KDE as nice as in Gnome would be a cool feature for KDE3. But I have no idea about creating icons, and I admire everybody who has. Someone out there should create some nice looking icons for KDE...

Heiner

P.S. I have to revise this a bit: Some of the icons of kde are quite nifty. For instance the K of the KMenu and the icons of konsole and konqi.
But konqi's stop button isn't as nice...

I think whether the icons in Gnome are "nicer" than those in KDE or not depends a lot on your taste. When I last tried gnome, my reaction was, looking at the panel "Boy are these icons ugly compared to the KDE ones".